Reanimating Regions

James Riding is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Space and Political Agency Research Group/RELATE Centre of Excellence at the University of Tampere, Finland. Martin Jones is Professor of Human Geography and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Staffordshire University, UK.

• List of Figures List of TablesNotes on ContributorsAcknowledgementsForewordIntroduction: A New New Regional GeographyMartin JonesPart I: Culture1 Writing Regional Cultural Landscape: Cultural Geography on the Norfolk BroadsDavid Matless2 Regions Rock: Heavy Metal and the Role of Music in the Construction of Regional Identity for the British MidlandsJesse Heley and Marc Welsh3 On ParochialismJohn Tomaney 4 Mapping Cultures of Regional Perception and Conception: A Cultural Cartography from Northeast BrazilJörn Seemann5 Regionalists and Excursionistes: Catalan ‘Regions’ and National IdentityVenetia CongdonPart II: Politics 6 A Radical New Regional Geography: Notes on a RevolutionJames Riding 7 The Crisis at the Centre of the United Kingdom: Exploring Scottish Independence and Democratically Disruptive Regions Philip Johnstone 8 From ‘Fly Frontier’ to ‘Cotton Country’: Social Change and Agrarian Transformation in the Northwest of ZimbabweNicholas James 9 Intertwined Spatialities: Discursive Construction(s) of Central Germany Roger Baars and Antje Schlottmann 10 Regions, Regionalisms and Identities: Towards a Regional MessKaj Zimmerbauer11 City-Region Building and Geohistorical MattersDavid Beel, Martin Jones and Ian Rees JonesPart III: Performance

'This is a welcome and provocative collection which reveals a resurgence of regional geography, from a spectrum of perspectives. Drawing on a range of detailed case studies, the authors show why regions matter, on the ground, and in the mind, as a locus of social and economic life, a lens on prevailing geographical processes and patterns, and as a resource for imagining alternative, possible worlds.' — Stephen Daniels, Professor of Cultural Geography, University of Nottingham and editor of Envisioning Landscapes, Making Worlds: Geography and the Humanities, and The Iconography of Landscape'Through a refreshingly-diverse and contemporary set of chapters, this book fully delivers on its title and its promise. Reanimating Regions gathers a distinctive and international set of voices and perspectives. If the fortunes of 'the region' as a conceptual frame and substantive topic have risen and fallen through time, then here we see a strong and fresh case made for regionality as cultural form, political crucible and performative inspiration.' — John Wylie, Professor of Cultural Geography, University of Exeter and author of Landscape'Region – both as a generic idea and a tool used in governance, classification and distribution – has become increasingly significant during the last few decades. At the same time regional identities and political regionalism have gained popularity at and across various spatial scales, displaying the meaning of regions for economic and cultural life, social reproduction and related struggles. This exciting book brings together an interdisciplinary and international group of scholars and artists who open novel perspectives on what regions are and do, and how we should understand their functions and power in the contemporary globalizing world.' — Anssi Paasi, Professor of Geography, University of Oulu and author of Territories, boundaries and consciousness: the changing geographies of the Finnish-Russian border, and Pure Geography